The Alternative Reading List Awards 2025
Who can pitch a book so well that everyone wants to read it? These are the winners of the 2025 Alternative Reading List Awards.
On November 18, 2025, the University Library will be celebrating the joy of reading during the festive Alternative Reading List Awards ceremony – a tribute to books, stories, and everyone who loves to read.
The Award ceremony, hosted by Leiden University guest author Manon Uphoff, brings together readers of all ages and yields a flood of inspiring book recommendations. We received so many nominations for books that moved, inspired, or simply captivated. The awards go to readers who best succeeded in inspiring others to read their books, encouraging them to head straight to the library or bookstore.
The jury compiled a shortlist of the most inspiring nominations for each award category – student, lecturer, and other reading enthusiast. Below you'll find the shortlists, with the option to borrow books from the Leiden University Libraries Catalogue for some titles. Would you rather browse through the book? Most of the shortlisted books and many more entries can be viewed in the reading corner in the Huygens Information Centre, at the heart of the University Library.
Student:
Malou Holshuijsen, Zachtop lachen
2021
“This book feels like an emotional rollercoaster with confetti cannons. Holshuijsen writes with a dry comedic edge that makes you burst out laughing one sentence and sob (yes, really, ugly-crying-with-snot-and-everything) the next. It's a brutal yet loving autobiography about fear, family, colonial legacies, and trauma, but told with so much humor that you forget you're actually in the middle of a heavy story. And the style? It's so smooth. Before you know it, you're three chapters in and your coffee has gone cold. The book is partly written as a transcript of conversations between a psychiatrist and a patient. This creates a ping-pong dynamic that's a delight to read, but also demonstrates that literature lives in all forms.”
Jacqueline Harpman, I who have never known men
1995
“Everyone should read this book because of the lasting impression it leaves. Who is a woman in a world without men? What shapes her identity? It was the first time I read a book and immediately wanted to reread it upon finishing.”
Jan Siebelink, Suezkade
2008
“Everyone should read this book because… it addresses flaws in the high school system, pedophilia, and eating disorders in a particularly intriguing way, following Marc through his years as a (fictional) high school teacher. Bonus points for the gruesome ending, which, for me, is the best part of psychological novels.”
Lecturer:
Ivan Jablonka, Laëtitia ou la Fin des hommes
2016
“[Everyone should read this book because…] it approaches true crime from an original perspective: instead of painting a sensational portrait of the perpetrator, Laëtitia ou la Fin des hommes highlights the life of the victim, that was brutally cut short. It makes the reader wonder: why are we so fascinated by the psyche of murderers, but pay so little attention to the vulnerable in our society?”
Reggie Baay, De njai
2008
“Everyone should read this book because… more people in the Netherlands than you might initially think (I'm one of them) are descended from a njai, an Indonesian concubine. These women rarely receive recognition as ancestors, which is unfair! This book, with its moving stories, explains why.”
Judith Fanto, Narcis
2025
"[Everyone should read this book because…] you experience how important friendship can be to a person. On the one had you experience how desperately Manno tries to keep his group of friends together, while on the other hand, you also see how lonely you can be despite having good friends around you. Manno is a hero in the broadest sense of the word."
Other Reading Fanatics:
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
1868
“A timeless emotional story about sisterhood, growing up, love, and defiance. Little Women follows four distinct sisters navigating through womanhood and their struggle to conform to society's strict ideals of femininity in the midst of poverty. Despite being set in the 1860s, it is still relevant for current feminism.”
Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Dreamscribe
1986
“As a genre, horror is remarkably underrated, despite its meteoric rise (alongside fantasy and science fiction) into the popular mainstream. No lack of appreciation for the genre for Ligotti, however. This horror connoisseur is rightfully one of only ten living authors published by Penguin Classics.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief
2021
“This short book takes a close look at how grief can impact a person. It is a personal account of the author's loss of a parent during the COVID pandemic, and goes into all the conflicting emotions grief can conjure, especially when you can't be with your family.”
Organisers
The Alternative Reading List Awards are an initiative of the vaksteunpunten Nederlands en Moderne Vreemde Talen at Leiden University in collaboration with the Onderwijsnetwerk Zuid-Holland (ONZ) and Leiden University Libraries, and are intended to promote reading enjoyment in times of reading crisis and declining reading skills.